


got you shackled in my embrace

by stranded_star



Category: Holy Trinity (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Boarding School AU, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-09 11:08:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3247421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stranded_star/pseuds/stranded_star
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hannah wants to pretend they’re anyone else but two 15 year old girls in a futile love story. Boarding school au.</p>
            </blockquote>





	got you shackled in my embrace

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr: wordharvest.tumblr.com
> 
> thanks for reading!

*** 

In the moments where her hair spills over the yellow cloth of Hannah’s sheets, Hannah can’t tell the difference between her blonde curls and sunlight. Her eyes are shut tightly, long lashes tangling together from the mascara she’s just begun to use, and her lips are curling up in a smile that makes Hannah’s heart stop. 

Grace is made entirely of those moments, in Hannah’s mind, those moments where the simple curve of her mouth or the lines of her body make her heart fail in its rhythm. Even from the instant she first trailed into Hannah’s vision, all knees and teeth and ill-fitting jumper, she felt a skip, a jump, a gasp that left her lungs burning. 

For oxygen. She never quite has enough, here in the cloisters of stone and boarding school windows, where the air is filled with the dust from antiquity. It’s the sort of beauty Hannah loves in theory and feels strangled by, in practice. 

But in this instance, with the sun blending into the highlights of Grace’s curls, and the sweet smell of cinnamon wafting up from the kitchens, Hannah feels loose and free, like a ship left to sail out on a calm ocean. And she feels so vast, in a cocoon of dim light and warm covers, that her hand reaches out to push stray bits of hair from Grace’s summer rose cheeks. 

The dusty pink darkens on her skin, and Hannah’s heart stumbles, because she never thought human skin could be quite so beautiful. She thinks of the thousands of words devoted to describing the beauty of a woman, and how even after all the ones she’s read, she still doesn’t have the right words to describe the flush of Grace’s skin against her fingertips. 

“What are you thinking about?” Grace’s voice is a whisper, not quite cracking the stillness of the air.

Hannah pauses. “You.”

Grace’s eyes grow large and heavy, swimming with three years of memories. “What about me, Hannah?” 

She thinks, for several long moments, because her answer can’t be full of rushed declarations of beauty or friendship. Grace would see through it, with her eyes big enough to absorb all the light in the room. 

So her words trip out in all her glorious honesty. “How nothing ever feels like enough.” 

Grace raises herself to her elbows, sweater coming untucked from her mussed plaid skirt. A slip of pale skin shines out, like a sliver of the moon in the endless sky. 

“Maybe it never will – I mean, life is like that, I think.” Grace pauses, teeth biting at the chapped skin of her lip. “I have that feeling all the time. Like there’s a balloon filling up in my chest…and it’s never going to pop, it’s just going to grow and grow forever.” 

She blushes. “I’ve had too many poetry classes here.” 

Hannah laughs, and leans closer, her shoulder firm against Grace’s. “I like it.” Her fingers play with the frayed cuff of Grace’s sweater, and sparks race up her nerves when her pinky brushes soft skin. “I wish it would go away.” 

Grace turns, gaze direct and unforgiving. Her nose is pink from a lingering cold, and stray curls chase the corners of her eyes, but she is the most radiant thing Hannah has ever seen. Staring into her eyes feels like looking into the sun, but she has never been so willing to get burned. 

“Hannah Hart,” she declares. “You are too young to be jaded.” 

Giggles bubble out of both of them and they fall back on the pillows, blonde blending into brown, hands so close. Hannah can see the rise and fall of Grace’s chest as she breathes, slow and steady, like clockwork. She feels like Hannah’s own metronome, keeping the seconds in line as they march together through each endless day. 

They fade into silence, walls stealing their secrets, as they always do. Hannah breathes. Her chest is filling up with a thousand unsaid declarations, heart fluttering so fast for all the stillness surrounding them. 

Their own bubble, in this maze of girls and heat and constant eyes. Always surveyed, here. They inch closer, so the soft curves of their bodies fit just so, nestled close because intimacy is easy, in these silent moments. 

Grace turns her head, nose pressing into Hannah’s cheek. She smells of vanilla and detergent, clean and familiar. Hannah remembers the first time Grace hugged her, one month after they’d met on the broad lawns of the school. They’d been dancing around each other in the early weeks of friendship, as awkward pre-teen girls do, and the first time Grace wrapped her thin arms around Hannah’s shoulders, she felt that click, the click of bodies coming together in a whole that is greater than its parts. 

She can never describe what it feels like to be close to her, only that being away from her feels like gasping. The world is so much more beautiful when she’s in Grace’s orbit. And Grace is so close, right now, warm breath ghosting over Hannah’s skin. The insistent tug drawing them together. 

When her lips find the corner of Hannah’s mouth, she sighs, long and low, because no matter how dangerous, this feels like coming home. 

Grace’s kisses are slow and lazy. Hannah slides on top of her, knees cuddling her hips, still narrow. Every soft line of her body still feels like a novelty: the curve of her breasts, the bump of her hipbones, the smooth plane of her stomach. She drinks it in, as like water she feels she will always thirst for this. 

She remembers the first time Grace leaned over to clumsily press her lips to Hannah’s own. It felt like a slip, an accident, that sweet moment of skin on skin. Later, when it happened in a back corridor, or behind the cherry trees, and then in the mornings, when Hannah tip-toed over to wake Grace up, she came to understand that it was a part of who they were. As seamless a transition as the moment that Grace began hugging her. 

Impossible to erase, but necessary to hide. And Hannah knows, that with all the silence between them and undeclared promises of love – whatever love was, whatever it meant – it will never be enough. 

Grace is the air in her lungs, constantly filling without breaching the surface, never reaching the comfort she yearns for. But in this moment, she is here: sharing breath, sharing life. 

For now, enough. 

***


End file.
